Nov. 27, 2025

What Thanksgiving Is Like In Prison

Show Notes
Transcript

Jim Chapman brings you inside several stories from convicts themselves who spent Thanksgiving in prison.

Chapters
01:40 Thanksgiving in Prison
02:19 First Thanksgiving Stories
07:46 Pandemic Challenges
09:55 Food and Family Memories
14:16 Perspectives on Thanksgiving
23:44 Emotions and Reflections
28:57 Connection and Solidarity

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WEBVTT

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M h I walk straight line, shackle chain, ohsome girdie,

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it's calling my name. There is no mercy and it's

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been a tentery juice as the huge stream game Wrangle three.

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I'm here be by me to die.

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Inside these walls, inside the wild.

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And when the walk girl as I'm.

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to Bloody Angola, a podcast

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one hundred and forty two years in the making, the

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complete story of America's bloodiest prison. I'm Jim Chapman, and

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it is Thanksgiving week. So I hope, first of all,

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that you're spending some time with family and friends and

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you're thinking about all the things that you're thankful for. I,

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of course, am very thankful for all of you. Couldn't

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do this podcast without you, and I thought it would

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be fitting today to bring you some prison stories as

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it relates to Thanksgiving. A lot of people ask me

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how do convicts spend the holidays inside behind bars? And

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so I scoured the internet. I came up with several

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interesting articles. So I'm going to give you a look

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inside of a prison right now and how these convicts celebrated.

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And I'm going to start off with one from the

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Prison Journal and it's titled why my first Thanksgiving in

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prison was the best one I had in forever. This

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is written by an actual inmate, starts off between being sober,

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getting a visit, and having a surprise feast with the

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mean girls in my unit. I still cherish the day.

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Thanksgiving was not the worst holiday in prison, but looking back,

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I think maybe it was the saddus behind bars. The

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best holidays were usually the ones that have been the

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least exciting in the free world, things like Labor Day,

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Memorial Day, and Sunday. These were times when we didn't

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miss our family as much, when it didn't feel like

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an entire season of celebration was continuing without us. Still,

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in a sense, my first Thanksgiving and custody was better

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than the ones before it, when I had been addicted

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to heroin and selling drugs to feed my habit. Back then,

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most of the holidays were a druggy blur, save the

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occasional near disaster, like a year a housemate got chased

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down the street with a baseball bat and had to

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spend the rest of the day in hiding because he

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urinated on another guy's cokestash. I was too high to

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be bothered by it. At the time, it was just

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another crazy drug story, But if I had been sober enough,

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it might have seemed sad and lonely. A few years later,

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I got arrested with a tupperware of heroin, and I

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was stone cold sober from my first Thanksgiving in prison.

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That was in twenty eleven, a few months after a

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judge sentenced me to two and a half years behind

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bars for fell Any drug possession. In the New York

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prison where I did a lot of my time, we

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lived in dorms that looked like warehouses. It was always

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cold in the winter and the heat was never high enough.

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On weekends and holidays, they only fed us twice a day,

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lumping breakfast and lunch together with meals never particularly worth eating.

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But on Thanksgiving I skipped the mess hall. I was

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lucky I had a visitor. The person I was dating

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had driven two and a half hours to go to

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the Outboyn Correctional Facility's tedious screening process and sit across

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from me at a beat up table in a noisy

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visiting room. We didn't have our families around, and we

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were surrounded by prisoners in green and officers in blue.

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Our celebration was pitiful, but we had each other. We

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played scribble as per usual. Then we enjoyed one of

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the major perks of visitation, snacks from the visiting machine.

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We used up all our quarters on soda and candy.

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Then we took a paper clip and carved the words

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turkey on the snickers in Rees's. We called it our

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holiday meal. Then I went back to my dorm. At

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that point, I lived in an absolutely awful unit. Everyone

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hated each other and my bunkie had it out for me.

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There were thieves who would steal your toilet paper, and

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there were fights in the bathroom. It seemed like we

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all had a creepy and mean officer assigned to us,

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the one who would watch us change and hand out

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disciplinary tickets like candy, and send people to solitary for

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things like wearing pajamas in the daytime. But that Thanksgiving

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we had one good officer. He came in and spotted

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a few women hogging the hot plates in the day room,

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making food only for the people they liked, and he

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issued an order quote, it's Thanksgiving. If you're cooking, you're

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cooking for the whole damn unit. So they did we

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all got together and donated commentsary items.

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I lived on canned.

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Peas, so I pitched in some of those. Other people

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showed up with instant mashed potatoes, rice beans, and dry pasta.

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They cooked all day and.

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Everyone with any culinary inclination pitched in. Supplies were limited.

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Most spices weren't allowed, but some people had already bought

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them on the prison's black market. Now, despite the lack

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of tools in the hodgepodge of ingredients, the result was

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amazing pasta, salad, spice, cabbage, rice, yams, turkey, cranberry sauce,

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green beans, mac and cheese, and ten or fifteen different

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kinds of cakes and pies.

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Most of it was a little.

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Orange, because Sason, the number one spice in prison is orange.

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But it tasted so good.

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No one thought, now, this is what I think of

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and I think of redemption. It was only one day

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and then everything went back to.

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How it was.

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But this is how change happens. One day at a time.

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People learn about the kindness and hope and change through

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individual moments that eventually add up to a different person.

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Those moments felt so scarce behind bars. That's why this

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Thanksgiving makes me so sad. I think of all the

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people in prison living with the pandemic, the lockdowns, and

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the maths of closed wreck yards and day rooms and

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visiting rooms. Some facilities have restarted visitation and are trying

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to get back to normal, y'all.

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Incidentally, this was written.

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At if you can't tell during the pandemic, but many

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aren't there yet. And either way, crowding around a hot

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plate to cook a buffet meal is not safe anymore.

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People behind bars will not witness the fleeting scene of

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redemption I saw them as ten years ago. The year

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twenty twenty have made prison holidays even sadder. This week,

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I message Jamain in solitary come. He communicates with his

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family and friends on the outside through a contraband phone.

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For him, pandemics and lockdowns do not make much difference

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this holiday season, he said, the mood is much the

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same as in years past. It's always desperation. That's not

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to say he won't celebrate.

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He will.

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Last year he had a cell mate and together they

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made tacos and drank smuggled in gin. This year he's

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hoping to swape out GIN for something a little more efficient,

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like everclear. I don't know how fishing that is, and

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to figure out a way to feed his whole pod,

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whether they are indingent or not. Whatever prison magic he

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pulls off, he will celebrate it and wanting to sell

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in a lock up ravaged by coronavirus, and if he

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wants to witness any redemption, he will have to supply

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it for himself. I know this year is harder for

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some of us, as we cancel friends givings and weigh

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the risk of going home against the sadness of staying put.

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It's harder to remember what we're grateful for now. It's

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hard to see the light in such dark times. Personally,

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I have not handled this year's isolation well.

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Even in a good year. I'm not an optimist.

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Still, when I think back to Thanksgivings past, it's so

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much easier to be grateful than I am. Not where

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I was that I am out now and working an

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amazing job where I can tell the stories of people

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who are still on the inside, plotting to score some everclear,

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carving turkey on their snickers and counting down the days

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to freedom. That was his story, and obviously, as I said,

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that was during the pandemic, So an interesting view of

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what the pandemic was like during the holidays. I'm going

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to tell you another one, also from the prison journal.

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It says the holidays in prison are depressing and most,

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if not all, of us wish it would just hurry

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up and pass. Mail, which is very important for prisoners,

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is delayed and programs are canceled, which leaves little to do.

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Prisons are short staffed, and those who are working are disgruntled,

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and they take it out on the prisoners. And maybe

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the worst torture is that the same tired reruns on

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TV remind us we are away from our family. And

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that's something also to keep in mind is the CEOs

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are working during the holidays too. They're in there with

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the prisoners, and they ain't happy about it a lot

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of times when it's during the holidays. As you can understand,

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He goes on to say, I was born on Thanksgiving.

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My family would gather at my grandparents' farm. I remember

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Grandma in the grand kitchen cooking, baking and fluttering around

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creating memorable smells. Grandpa would greet everyone at the door,

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would cheer. He entertained us with grand stories.

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And bad jokes. Love the way this guy writes.

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He played games with us in the basement, and when

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he would get up he would say I should put

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another log on the fire, and we all shot and

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know he was a bit of a pirate maniac. I've

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spent them as eighteen thanksgivings in nine different prisons. Prior

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to Correstionial Industries, that's sea I taking over food services,

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we looked forward to a homemade brunch of chocolate chip pancakes, waffles, sausage,

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crambled eggs, chocolate milk. Dinner used to be a large

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baked turkey leg, homemade stuffing, cranberries, yam, pecan pie, ice cream,

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and a treat bag. After CI took over, the brunch

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was replaced with our usual tasteless, unhealthy breakfast consisting of

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four slices of bread, frozen peanut butter and flavored corn syrup, packets,

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a brownie in chips for lunch to eating ourselves. Dinner

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was a slice of processed turkey stuffing, over cooked vegetables

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and heated whole yam, maybe cranberry sauce, maybe frozen pumpkin

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pie with no ice cream, and the usual writing fruit

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and if you're curious, SEAI that is like a giant

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supplier to presents of food.

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So it's you.

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Know, a lot of these presents. They're not like Gola.

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They don't cook everything right there on site. They order

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out if you will, and it's not as you can

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see here in the most tasty of food. And it

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goes on this letter to say, but there are some positives.

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It's one of the few times that we set aside

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prison politics to watch a game or play guards together.

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I call my family in the early morning because I

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know it's harder to get to the phone and it

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gets lighter later in the day. Although there is no lending, trading,

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barring or giving allowed, the guards usually look the other way.

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As we make and share or spread of prison cuisine.

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Different groups get together and make their spreads, which are

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usually nachos or top ramen burritos. Others line a table

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with a trash bag and turn it into a community

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nacho spread for the entire pod. Airway Heights was probably

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the most creative. In the morning, a group who had

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the money would make omelets with powdered eggs, French toast

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pancakes made from Ensta potatoes and bacon up for everyone.

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After afternoon or evening meals will consist of various different

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takes on the standard burrito or nachos. Cold burritos made

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with shredy beef, cream cheese, lettuce, and sometimes tomatoes if available,

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and nachos with chili beef crumbles, squeeze and block cheeses

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in a mix of various different chips. With the pandemic,

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there was a little training of various Thanksgiving dishes because

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we had to eat in our cells. There were no

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special spreads. We were mostly locked down. We hope this

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year will be more relaxed than all the working staff

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will have been vaccinated. I think everyone is tired of

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hearing about COVID nineteen. The supply chain issue has already

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affected the commentary, which is continuously out of staples like beans, rice, cheese,

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and even popcorn. It's hard to tell what Thanksgiving meal

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will be this year. Still, I can be thankful that

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I probably won't be in the hole this year. Is

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I stopped filing grievances and lawsuits against the prison staff.

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I have Turner classic movies on my cable package. Although

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they are all reruns, they are old enough that I

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probably have not seen them yet. The prison journalism project

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has also made me feel like I am contributing to

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society and hopefully I will be part of fixing a

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broken system.

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And that was his letter, and both.

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Letters there gave you kind of a eye of what

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the pandemic looked like to these prisoners. And we'll move

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on to an article from Newsweek. Thanksgiving in prison is

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a beggar's feast. This Thanksgiving, I will enjoy roasted turkey

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surrounded by squabbling family members. For the first time since

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two thousand and two. I have a lot to be

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thankful for. For the past eleven Thanksgiving afternoons, I had

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just minutes to eat slimy turkey roll off of plastic

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trade gross, rushed along by guards eager to get home

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for their holiday meal. Thanksgiving in prison was a meal

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that implied I deserved no better. I was arrested in

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November of two two thousand and three for five charges

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of arm robbery. I graduated from New York University in

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the year two thousand and begun a career in publishing,

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but I also dabbled in drugs, and after two years

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of a heroin addiction, I had one hundred dollars a

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day habit and owed my violent Ukrainian dealer five grand.

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Using the same pocket knife I once took camping as

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a boy, I turned to ribbery. Luckily no one was hurting.

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The newspapers dubbed me the apologetic bandit for the apologies

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I expressed to my victims. Nevertheless, the judge gave me

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twelve years. I was released in February, and, having paid

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dearly for my crime, finally have a turkey breast and

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feuding uncles in sight. New York State calls its jails

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correctional facilities. The goals of improving prisoners includes eventually returning

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them to society, but many convicts have never fit well

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in the conventional world to begin with. Some have not

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had the experiences of civilian takes for granted, whether it's fishing,

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summer job, going to high school, flying on airplanes, or

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even having parents. I learned the telltale signs of a

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group home youth in prison mess halls. The guys who

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wouldn't touch the vegetables had been raised without parents to

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teach them to eat greens on Thanksgiving. The clue was

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a stuffing. Men who had graduated from state care to

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prison never ated. They didn't know what stuffing was and

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were not prepared to rest trying it in their lives.

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Most surprises have been bad news without alcohol or the

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opposite sex. All celebration in jail is done through the

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alimentary canal. Four holidays are marked with special food turkey

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on Thanksgiving, fried chicken on Fourth of July, chicken breast

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on New Year's Eve, and roast beef on Christmas. Lesser

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holidays like Columbus Day, Memorial Day and Labor Day call

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for two hamburgers and two hot dogs. Martin Luther King

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Junior's Birthday isn't on Albanese calendar, while Saint Patrick's Day

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is commemorated with corn beef despite being a national holiday.

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Introducing those from the margins of society to the shared

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national culture they preyed on is a good reason to

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celebrate Thanksgiving in prison, but doling out turkey to fifty

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seven thousand prisoners is expensive. Real meat in New York

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prisons was phased out twenty years ago along with higher

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education programs. For the most part, soy substitute satisfies the

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nutritional requirement for protein, although a weekly chicken leg survived

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the budget cuts. The Thanksgiving solution is to serve the

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cheapest substitute. They can still pass for turkey.

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Wow.

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The regular Thanksgiving dinners three slices of turkey, roll, a

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log of something white and speckled with the occasional beak

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or bone.

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Ah Man.

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There's also stuffing, cranberry jellies, and carrots. The meal is

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early by five o'clock. The prisoners are locked in their

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units by a skeleton crew. The rest of the staff

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is at home celebrating with real turkey. Holidays are approached

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with ambiguity in prison. The administration appears to encourage inmates

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to celebrate them the staff resists. I once spent Christmas

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in the Special housing unit. It's a prison on the

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Canadian border, comprised entirely of solitary confinement cells, and it

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was as far from New York City and my family

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as it is possible to be while remaining in New

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York State. Not a very correctional setting. Just as grass

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grows through the grass of the pavement, inmates celebrate despite

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their limitations. They are not consciously asserting themselves as human

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beings who deserve to participate in our society's holidays. They

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just know it's jail house. Tradition to cook big on Thanksgiving.

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Prison culture is short on meaningful dates, although convicts in

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New York State memorialized September thirteenth by going to the

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mess hall but not eating the food. That's how they

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commemorate the Attica Riots, which began on that day in

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nineteen seventy one. Young prisoners are taught this and all

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other customs by older ones, and they also learn to

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save their food money for Thanksgiving to make the biggest

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meal of the year. After the trays of turkey roll

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are served at four in the afternoon, the prisoners return

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to their dorms or cell blocks, where the cooking has

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been going on since early morning. With only a few

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stoves and pans and microwaves available, every hour of the

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day is required, especially since three feasts are being prepared.

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There are three chefs and their assistance. Three long tables

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are set up in the common rooms using every card

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table in cardboard box available and homogenized in appearance with

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white sheets that serve as tablecloths. Plastic trash bags keep

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the flies off the food.

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There will be.

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Three batches of mac and cheese, three pitchers of kool aid.

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The incarcerated population can be divided into three main groups, Whites, Blacks,

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and Hispanics, and each of the three tables is for

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men of the use each race. Since the state of

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race relations in prison is about where the nation was

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in nineteen forty eight, Whites, blacks, and Hispanics eat separately.

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When the real enemy appears, as it did in Attica,

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the men unite, but in everyday life segregation remains the rule.

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The gravity of breaking bread with a man is understood

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with an almost biblical earnestness, so the races do not

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share foods. Men usually live in trios of cooking squads

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so that the business of procurement, preparation and cleanup can

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be delegated. These teams are almost always uniracial. I was

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firmly told that if I cooked with African Americans or Hispanics,

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I could not return to the whites table. However, on

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Thanksgiving many rivalries are put aside to share specialties like

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the curry powder Jamaican smuggling, or the Latinos method of

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boiling an unopened can of condensed milk to make dulci delation.

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And I'm sure someone knows how to pronounce that better

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than me. There is also a friendly competition between the

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races to have the most elaborate meal. As bellies fill,

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the men soften and often break their usual rules and

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racial barriers by sending samples from table to table. The

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whites spend most of the money by ordering smoked meats

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from a company specializing and selling hams in Turkey brust

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to inmates. The mail order business was roomored to be

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run by correctional officers, and this was the reason given

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by many who would not order from them. Latinos were

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deemed the finest cooks. They knew their way around the spices,

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though their devotion to garlics sometimes killed the vampires in

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our sealed dorms. The black table always had the most

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food within their community. The dilemma was pork. Prisoners with

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nothing to contribute will buy a place at the table

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by doing dishes or just waiting until the others finished

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For leftovers. No one goes without and the rest of

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the week is devoted to polishing off leftovers. Without access

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to refrigerators in can eat quickly. Prisoners are not wealthy.

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I live on one hundred dollars a month and I

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was in the one percent. These elaborate Thanksgiving meals bankrupt

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many inmates, but the men are willing to spend half

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a year's accumulated state pay on food for this day,

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only to give away much of it. It's not rational,

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but when has rational ever been in prison? Just as

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the state makes its point with disgusting and dispiriting turkey logs,

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the prisoners make their own in excess. Being locked away

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from family and friends hurts a little more on the holidays.

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Hardened convicts can still be susceptible to pain of loss.

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An acquaintance of mine once went out to the row

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of thones in the yard to call his wife, learn

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that she had left him, and hung himself ten minutes later.

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While prisoners generally mistrust and plot against one another, every Thanksgiving,

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I saw men play family for each other, singing songs

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to only tells, and making lots of curtuitous physical contact,

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along with simply feeding one another. All right, and I

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got one more for you today. And this one's very

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recent as a matter of fact, it was actually written

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just a couple of days ago, and it's titled What

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Thanksgiving looks Like Behind Bars. For many, the holidays are

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emotionally tough for those with strained family relationships, and for

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those who suffer from drug and alcohol addiction, and for

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those who are in prison. Quote, there's a somber mood.

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Mike Cantrell, a retired corrections officer who worked for the

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Missouri State Penitentiary in Federal Bureau of Prisons, tells an

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e Crime and investigation it's just quiet, almost eerie. If

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00:23:47.640 --> 00:23:50.160
you work in a men's prison, there's always a roar

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of men's voices in the background, except for the holidays.

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On Thanksgiving Day, prisons often serve holiday meals to their population,

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but the fact fact the prison food is so unappetizing

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makes the gesture towards a Thanksgiving meal worse. That from

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00:24:07.720 --> 00:24:11.319
Henry Dillard, who was incarcerated from nineteen ninety five to

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two thousand, it feels like a slap in the face.

393
00:24:14.680 --> 00:24:17.799
Dillard said, you get this plastic tray with a scoop

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of dressing, a slice of manufactured turkey, some gravy, something fruit,

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and a couple of slices of bread. It would be

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